One, I fragmented it. I’m not going to fix it. There are still some interesting ideas in there.
What got me started there was the thought: say the Cultural Sadeists really do take over. What does Earth look like a 1,000 years from now? A million? A billion?
Think of your own future. Does it not look like fog 20′ from your headlights? What if you could drink a potion to tell you your own future, with the proviso you could not change any decisions because of it? Would you do it? What if you could change your decisions, with consequences you were not allowed to see? What if you made things worse, inventing new mistakes? What if you lived the perfect life? It would be like a life review, but on the front end.
Is part of the art of life not learning to live with mystery, with the future a mystery second only to what is, now? Can you see the mists surrounding you at this very moment?
What if you knew there were an infinite amount of space around you, that nothing you see is solid, not even the ground around you? Could you accept that?
It often seems to me that the most important limitations on our freedom are those we set ourselves, to avoid extending our horizons to infinity.
The Masters in that post were of course the Grand Inquisitors of Dostoevsky, who set as their “burden” the enlightenment through material improvement of the human race. But what if they achieve it? What then? Their source of meaning is gone.
This is why I define the ability to live happily by oneself as an integral aspect of Goodness. If you need other people to need you, you are not free, and your need for them will lead you to control them, to the detriment, finally, of both of you.
Few thoughts.